Runt of the Litter
by The Summerfly
Summary: Lupercalia fic. Steve would never admit that wolf-envy was part of the reason he went to sign up during the festivities. But it still was.


Bucky's wolf was a bitch, mottled brown and brown and more brown with a shade of gray, none of which with any shape or substance at all, changing and twisting and shifting the longer Steve looked at her, like her coat was a pelt of camouflage only a wolf could ever have. The lone thing that did not change was a patch of stark white on her chest, the color of fresh fallen snow.

Steve was an artist. He could see the eagle on her chest as sure as anyone, but probably better. The head sat there, in the strange little curl of fur that twisted like a cowlick, and there was the body, there, the center mass threaded together where fur met over her breastbone, and there were the wings, swept from outside in but still clear and apparent. There was no question at all of her origin in Steve's eyes.

If there were all he would have had to do was take a glance at the dog tags she wore, silver on a ball and wire chain like any other soldier. Bucky probably had a matching set under his shirt, identical down to the very last tag.

Bucky had his fingers buried in her pelt, scratching at her withers. They were both kneeling; the wolf was a puppy, only half-grown, but Steve was an artist. He could extrapolate at a glance.

In a year, kneeling in front of the wolf would put his face right in perfect face-eating height.

Glorious.

"Her name is Liberty." Bucky grinned at him, the same familiar smile Steve had always seen on him, and motioned with the hand not buried up to knuckles in wolf-fur for him to reach out and touch. "We'd know by now if she was going to bite you."

Her name could have been Eagle. Steve reached out to let her take in his scent anyway, the back of the hand up like he would when meeting any other half-grown puppy. The only difference between a wolf and a regular dog was just how much more inclined they were to dig their teeth in your jugular. He might not be inclined to try that difference in a fully grown animal, but puppies were different. Mostly. Probably. He didn't know, he'd never had a pet.

But Liberty sniffed at his hand and then butted it away with her head, shoving forward away from Bucky's hand to lick at Steve's chin and then his cheek and then his nose. Indistinct happiness bubbled from somewhere, not his but not not-his, either, and a further echo of not-his that might have been Bucky but also might have been Steve feeling a little weirded out by the not-his in the first place.

Steve would never admit that wolf-envy was part of the reason he went to sign up during the festivities.

But it still was.

x-x-x-x

The thing about the project was that they were still in Boot Camp, one way or another. No matter what happened, Steve would still be a soldier after this, like everyone else. He'd been so happy to be accepted, to finally get a chance, that he had actually kind of forgotten what being a soldier had entailed, all it's trappings and benefits, until the start of third week, even though Colonel Phillips and his brother and all the instructors and _their_ wolves have been running around everywhere the whole time.

Because third week was when the puppies came in.

A few months old, but barely. At this age they account to the size of miniature monsters. Big enough to put Steve's whole hand in their mouth.

Just puppies. They make Steve feel small anyway, the way Liberty did, standing in front of him.

Steve is not the first man to go to the wolf pen, or the second, or the third, or even the last. He just doesn't move forward, doesn't lean down over the fence and shove his hands down in the mess of fur and teeth and muzzles, _touching_ pups from what had to be a dozen odd litters, all of them weaned, none of their mothers here, no grown bitch here at all except the aged-old white matron wolf sitting next to her brother on the other side of the pen, a stack of papers on a small fold-out desk.

They're both watching Steve.

Steve's watching the Russian-blue pup walking on the fence rail in front of them, smaller than any of it's siblings, perfectly balanced on a scarce inch of wood. Like a cat.

No one's noticed it yet. Or, at least, no one else has seemed to. He risked a glance the rest of the recruits, buried up to their elbows, up to their throats, and Colonel Phillips and his brother Bruce are over there trying to get them to _order up, get out of the pup pen, we'll be doing this dignified, one at a time_ and not having much luck at it at all.

The blue does not stop walking on the rail so much as it starts walking on air, and then gravity takes over but it's a gentle landing, like it's had practice dropping three feet with no clear reason why. It is not a perfect landing, of course; it's a pup. But it's front feet on dirt and then a twist to throw the rest of the body sideways and down, and _then_ the pup is standing up again, shaking off the dust.

And then it very deliberately does not actually start walking for Steve, in a very careful zig-zag behind stacks of supplies, putting itself out of sight of everyone else.

Steve keeps telling himself it's not coming his way all the way up until the pup sits at his toes and starts gnawing on his bootlaces.

Doctor Erskine is there, maybe not next to him but close by, because Steve can hearhim speaking but he can not hear the words, cannot begin to fathom forming a response, because all he can feel and taste and smell is the rush of warm wind and the air after a lightning strike and the world the moment before the rain comes crashing down.

It feels like freedom.

In a heartbeat, Steve knows he'll die before he ever gives it up.

x-x-x-x

The German operative bit down on a cyanide capsule and died, but not his brother.

The wolf was about as much of the German ideology his brother had been, a uniform mist-gray with black socks and a thick, black collar made of leather that positively stank. He was thin and sleek, with a shining coat, healthy but unassuming. What one would expect from a senator's aid.

Against Freedom's newfound bulk, proportions still puppy-sized and with too-large feet and too-long legs for the rest of her body, the wolf looked positively _small_.

Compared to the last vial of serum, broken on the cobblestones, the wolf shouldn't have even caught his attention. But there he was, anyway, laying on his side, Freedom's huge paw on his shoulder, long pink tongue giving the strange wolf a bath. Steve could even feel him, in the eddies of the pack-sense, echos of a litter's pack-sense, warm and bright and crystal clear. Not so long ago, for either of them. The sense of feeling Freedom shore the strange enemy-wolf up into it, _my brother mine mine is okay now safe mine_, that nearly stopped him cold.

Because somewhere in the edges of his mind is an answer, _sorry not me not mine mine sorry please_, and with it the debilitating sense that Freedom was literally _holding the other wolf down so it did not bite at her_, teeth too close to vulnerable throat, the wolf's mind itself mostly clear but covered with a cloud of hate and anger that didn't feel like the wolf at all, so thick that the wolf's pain and loss barely made a dent.

It felt acidic. Like trying to swallow down medicine that was supposed to help, and really didn't.

Steve made his way carefully to Freedom's other side, mindful to keep himself well out of reach of teeth-snapping range. Part of him _felt_ that the German wolf was no threat, and part of him also felt that he was. It was disorientating. And not all of it was his sister, smatterings of blood-dust red edging into her formerly blue coat.

The serum. Doctor Erskine had said the version used for him was not the same version used for his sister, that it was different, designed for wolves, not people. The German had grabbed that too, probably, or maybe the wolf had, or maybe it was still there; Steve didn't know. There was only one smashed vial.

There was a kerchief in the German's breast pocket. Wet with water, he realized, even as he turned and went back for it. But it would have to be enough. He pulled it free and went to sop up what he could of the remaining formula from the small mound of broken glass, one hand a cradle. There were kids in the area, he couldn't leave glass just lying around, it wasn't right.

He would have to go back to the lab. Eventually. But right now Steve needed to think; the vial was the last of Doctor Erskine's work, or the last one Steve had seen, anyway. The wolf was German, born and breed, and his brother was dead, his whole sense of self clouded with something not natural. He could remember what Erskine had said, about Schmidt, and he couldn't help but wonder: had Schmidt tried to make the serum himself, and come out with something totally different?

And there was also that Freedom had just adopted the wolf, despite the difference in age- the male had to be at least two years old, maybe three, maybe four- and Steve wasn't sure how he was going to explain this to anyone.

When the three of them finally made it back there, the male wolf limping a bit, the haze clearer, Steve and Freedom on either side of him with the stained handkerchief in one pocket and the German soldier in his arms, Steve still didn't know how to explain it, but the words came out anyway.

"Don't kill him. He's been drugged."

He was pretty sure Bruce could feel it clear as anything, and he knew Colonel Phillips knew.

He did not, however, have any idea why Agent Carter was staring at the German wolf until much, much later.

x-x-x-x

Dancing and singing and prancing around on stage, like a tame dog instead of a wolf and a handler instead of a wolf-brother. Steve grew good at it with time, even almost liked it; he wasn't a soldier, and that made his heart sink so low often enough that eventually his sister managed to talk the acting-wolf that was pretending to be Hitler's brother and the wolf's very own brother into talking to him.

The conversation hadn't helped much. After the fact, though, that had.

But after it all, he grew to be less caustic about the truth. He was helping, and even if he was not a soldier, he was still helping them. In the only way Colonel Phillips would let him, the only way he could.

And anyway, _it's fun_, was usually Freedom's response to it all. _Can dance, is fun. Makes me tired though._ Which was probably good, working all their muscles the only way dancing could do. He just wished he could do something _more_...

Then they went on tour over-seas, his Freedom quite nearly full-grown, and his wish was granted.

x-x-x-x

Steve hadn't had time to explore when rescuing Bucky and Liberty from Schmidt's lab, but Freedom had soaked in all the scents and sights while he undid the buckling, while Bucky pressed the combination through the drug-laden pack-sense to undo Liberty's lock.

But if he hadn't had time to explore then, he certainly hadn't had time to think. Not then, or after. Things had been exploding. He'd had to get them all out of there. They'd gone up. They'd run into Schmidt. It had been... a unique experience.

Marching all the tired, rescued survivors back left him with _too much _time to think.

_Sick_, Freedom had told him quietly, a layer under the pack-sense, right about what a whisper would be. _Sick like Wolf_, and the name was tangled up in the scent of cigar smoke and singed wolf fur, drenched in dirty water. The beautiful Agent Carter's brother, the German wolf whose brother had left him behind to keep living. _But not like Wolf_, his sister went on, as if cautious of trying to articulate it. _Sick but not-sick. Like us?_

Steve didn't know what to think of that. But Freedom hadn't said anything else directly to him, checking to make sure Liberty was walking well, checking on the other wolves. Steve glanced behind him at Bucky, slung between two other men, quiet but mostly walking on his own. There were others in the same state, of course; some injured, some just tired, some just wanting to touch, suddenly very much aware they were alive, and that they were going to live, and starved from it, but knowing the guy next to them was a brother, their brother, and that they could get away with it, that they wouldn't mind.

Steve wanted to be that guy next to Bucky, but he couldn't. He had to lead them back to camp, back to safety, and to do that he had to _lead_.

But Bucky and Liberty still _looked _like they were supposed to. Like he remembered them, if a little rougher around the edges from wear and tear. Nothing like Schmidt.

He was kind of privately glad Schmidt hadn't had a wolf of his own. But the thought of what had happened to Schmidt happening to a wolf lingered at the edge of his mind, anyway. He pushed it away as much as he could. Now wasn't the time.

_Almost there_, Steve pressed through the pack-sense, stretched it over all of them that sense could reach. There were some soldiers without siblings, now. On both sides, wolf and human both. At least they'd managed to find the wolves, which was a relief all around, because they had been housed in a different part of the prison area. Apparently Schmidt hadn't cared which part of the equation he took captive; humans could build, and wolves could haul.

He could hear the echo through he pack-sense, too, the words traveling further back from his place, and the elation it lit up. Men and wolf who'd lost their sibling, that had been plugged into the greater whole before, were still plugged in. There were gaps, echoes of tired loss and phantoms of gunshots and bayonets, but everyone alive was still in the pack-sense.

Some of those who'd lost half of what they were were already bonding with survivors. Some of them more hesitant than others. There were two defecting Hydra soldiers in their wake, as well, and maybe eight former Hydra-wolves, not including their siblings, and at least one of _those_ wolves had managed to bond to an injured young man from Jersey despite the drug-haze.

Freedom came jogging back from the rear of the line, trotting all nice and precious, her weird two-tone blur of blue and blood a sight now well-familiar to _everyone_. Steve ran a hand from crown to croup as she passed him, climbing to the top of the hill in the road. _Here!_ She crooned, and then lifted her head and told the world. _We're here!_

Dozens of answering cries went up from beyond the hilltop.

The loudest response was from Wolf.

Steve smiled.

x-x-x-x

Eventually wounds healed. So it wasn't long before Steve and Freedom were building a team to go back into the war, at the request of the SSR.

Bucky and Liberty are a given, Bucky had always been there for him and Liberty just _is_, so _morning dew in the park _and _salt-water tide coming in _are the first scents to be a part of their pack, and with Bucky by proxy come Liberty's own little mini-pack.

Timothy Dugan and Brutus, _mustache wax and hat leather_ and _old ropes and warm steel and blood_; Jim Morita, _ash tree smoke,_ and Shouen, almost literally _smoke from burning gunpowder_; Gabriel Jones and his brother Michael, _slate rock quarry dust_ and _cracked-dry dirt in drought_. Jacques Dernier _hot peppermint tea_ and Prince _warm silk and baked bread_ end up shored in the pack-sense too, next to _wind over field of wild flowers_ and _fox den and wet fur_, who could only beJames Falsworth and Conor, all too likely added into the pack for sheer proximity, all being locked in the same cell.

Steve lets Freedom give her scent first, a tangle of _wind and ozone and rain and medicine_ that all go together but don't quite match, pulled from different moments as they were. Then he gives his own, carefully, mindfully, aware his new scent no longer matches the one before; _old-sick _and _new-sick _didn't matter_, _but on his tongue he can taste the serum through his veins, theserum _and oil paint and pencil lead_. Drugged artist, ha.

Nobody laughs, even over the pack-sense. Everyone is quiet and serious for several long moments, soaking it in.

Then Dugan calls for more alcohol, and Steve goes, heart lifted and light. These are the people he wants to take to war with him. He and Freedom have no doubts.

They get named the Howling Commandos.

Nothing could be more fitting.


End file.
